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We need to re-sign Barwin and Quin. We also need to cut Kevin Walter and SERIOUSLY considering cutting Owen Daniels and Antonio Smith. We have to address at least a couple of needs through free agency if we want to have a decent shot at helping ourselves in the draft.

I think Houston should pull out all the stops to pursue Vollmer for the RT spot. If we have any money left over after that, we should look at bringing Sean Smith, Ramses Barden, and Henry Melton.

And where are we going to get the money for making all those signings? Barwin will be expensive as you only need 1 team to think he can replicate the 11-sack season. Vollmer and Melton are both top-line free agents. At most, we might have the money to sign one of those 3. We need to temper expectations.

We can sign Quin and Barwin with our cap room right now. If we cut the three guys I suggested, we double our cap room. Vollmer would take most of that up, the other guys were "or," not "and." We could afford Vollmer and Barden, easily.

We can sign Quin and Barwin with our cap room right now. If we cut the three guys I suggested, we double our cap room. Vollmer would take most of that up, the other guys were "or," not "and." We could afford Vollmer and Barden, easily.

Please do not condescend to me.

Then we are expecting different salaries for Barwin. By all accounts we should have about 12 mill in cap space. Quin will take about 5 mill average and I'm guessing Barwin will take more than 7 even though he's not worth it. Vollmer will cost as much as Winston did and we already cut him for cap reasons last year. I can see Barden as a target. Melton, who you mentioned before, will cost as much or more than Barwin as probably the best UT on the market.

I'm not trying to be condescending. I just don't see a big name offseason as realistic given our cap concerns. Especially considering we'll have to extend Cushing and Watt soon._________________

We need to re-sign Barwin and Quin. We also need to cut Kevin Walter and SERIOUSLY considering cutting Owen Daniels and Antonio Smith. We have to address at least a couple of needs through free agency if we want to have a decent shot at helping ourselves in the draft.

I think Houston should pull out all the stops to pursue Vollmer for the RT spot. If we have any money left over after that, we should look at bringing Sean Smith, Ramses Barden, and Henry Melton.

And where are we going to get the money for making all those signings? Barwin will be expensive as you only need 1 team to think he can replicate the 11-sack season. Vollmer and Melton are both top-line free agents. At most, we might have the money to sign one of those 3. We need to temper expectations.

We can sign Quin and Barwin with our cap room right now. If we cut the three guys I suggested, we double our cap room. Vollmer would take most of that up, the other guys were "or," not "and." We could afford Vollmer and Barden, easily.

Please do not condescend to me.

Care to itemize that fuzzy math AND explain what you do to to replace the 3 relatively cheap starters you just cut to get a top of the pay scale RT, CB, DT, and WR that will get significant FA interest along with resigning 2 other starters in their prime like Quin/Barwin? I could possibly be on board with OD/Walter, but you will have a tough time convincing me that burning $2.5 million in dead space to save $6 million in 2013 salary to ditch one of our few second rung playmakers in Antonio will yield a superior defensive line. Crick is 1/4 the run stopper Antonio is, can't kick inside, and you still would still need to add depth to the line which isn't free. I'm assuming you are ready to move Graham into OD's spot, but again we still would need to address #2 TE and that costs money or a draft pick and also is a downgrade in talent & experience._________________

We need to re-sign Barwin and Quin. We also need to cut Kevin Walter and SERIOUSLY considering cutting Owen Daniels and Antonio Smith. We have to address at least a couple of needs through free agency if we want to have a decent shot at helping ourselves in the draft.

I think Houston should pull out all the stops to pursue Vollmer for the RT spot. If we have any money left over after that, we should look at bringing Sean Smith, Ramses Barden, and Henry Melton.

And where are we going to get the money for making all those signings? Barwin will be expensive as you only need 1 team to think he can replicate the 11-sack season. Vollmer and Melton are both top-line free agents. At most, we might have the money to sign one of those 3. We need to temper expectations.

We can sign Quin and Barwin with our cap room right now. If we cut the three guys I suggested, we double our cap room. Vollmer would take most of that up, the other guys were "or," not "and." We could afford Vollmer and Barden, easily.

Please do not condescend to me.

Care to itemize that fuzzy math AND explain what you do to to replace the 3 relatively cheap starters you just cut to get a top of the pay scale RT, CB, DT, and WR that will get significant FA interest along with resigning 2 other starters in their prime like Quin/Barwin? I could possibly be on board with OD/Walter, but you will have a tough time convincing me that burning $2.5 million in dead space to save $6 million in 2013 salary to ditch one of our few second rung playmakers in Antonio will yield a superior defensive line. Crick is 1/4 the run stopper Antonio is, can't kick inside, and you still would still need to add depth to the line which isn't free. I'm assuming you are ready to move Graham into OD's spot, but again we still would need to address #2 TE and that costs money or a draft pick and also is a downgrade in talent & experience.

1. Owen Daniels, Antonio Smith, and Kevin Walter aren't cheap. Cutting the three of them gives us $12.75MM in cap relief, raising our working cap space to $25.25MM

2. Quin is, at best, looking at a deal similar to Danieal Manning's, and given his lack of turnover potential I'd say something close to 4 years, $15-$18MM is reasonable. Let's just say $16.5MM for argument's sake. That's a $4.125MM hit this year.

3. Barwin's deal is likely going to be somewhat comparable to what Ahmad Brooks landed with his 6 year/$37MM deal (~$6MM per). If we say 5 years, $25MM, that's a $5MM hit. That still leaves us with $15.955MM in cap space. That's enough to sign Vollmer (or another tackle) to a deal comparable to Eric Winston's while STILL leaving us with roughly $10MM in space.

4. I don't think Smith's, Walter's, or Daniels' presences on this team are worth being paralyzed and unable to address bigger needs, particularly when we have cheaper options to replace Daniels (Casey and Graham), are already in desperate need of replacing Walter, and have depth on the defensive line at defensive end. You don't like Crick? Fine, I get it -- Smith is obviously better, but I'd rather take my chances with Crick, Jamison, and whoever we draft than lose Barwin and Quin and have to deal with Derek Newton starting as well as a receiving corps faced with still cutting Kevin Walter but relying on Keshawn Martin, Lestar Jean, and a couple of rookies to carry us forward._________________

Sorry to burst bubbles, we're not giving up on CHEAP young talent along our oline because a few of you don't like them. They were rookies last season and got a lot of play time and progressed throughout the season. This pipe dream or finding a new starting RT is dumb and not happening, stop bickering about it and move on.

And there is no way we let Smith walk to keep Barwin, thats stupid. Smith provides much more and getting a rushing OLB can be done via the draft. The run stuffing ability in Smith is valuable and he does provide pressure, hes MUCH better than Barwin and we shouldn't sacrifice him to keep Barwin.

Walter and OD IMO are the only REAL options of being released or traded. I think the only one he will be gone is KW. I doubt Gary lets his best TE go, he does have a fetish with them you know. The pressure is already on the find a super star wide out (per Bob Mcnair) so Gary will not forget to address this in a big way.

Sorry to burst bubbles, we're not giving up on CHEAP young talent along our oline because a few of you don't like them. They were rookies last season and got a lot of play time and progressed throughout the season. This pipe dream or finding a new starting RT is dumb and not happening, stop bickering about it and move on.

And there is no way we let Smith walk to keep Barwin, thats stupid. Smith provides much more and getting a rushing OLB can be done via the draft. The run stuffing ability in Smith is valuable and he does provide pressure, hes MUCH better than Barwin and we shouldn't sacrifice him to keep Barwin.

Walter and OD IMO are the only REAL options of being released or traded. I think the only one he will be gone is KW. I doubt Gary lets his best TE go, he does have a fetish with them you know. The pressure is already on the find a super star wide out (per Bob Mcnair) so Gary will not forget to address this in a big way.

A) Derek Newton isn't a rookie.

B) McNair said we need a new right tackle. I'll grant that my bickering about it amounts to less than a drop of [inappropriate/removed] on a sidewalk in Texas during July at noon, but McNair might have a thing or two to say about "staying the course" with the clearly over-matched Newton protecting his $62MM investment.

C) I disagree about Smith. He's one of my favorite Texans, but he's not going to get any younger or better and over-the-hill 5-techs are nowhere near as hard to find as guys capable of starting and succeeding at outside linebacker in a 34 scheme in the NFL. You want run-stopping? Barwin and Reed give us MUCH better run-stopping capability than Mercilus and Reed or Barwin. I like Antonio Smith, but he's not worth $6MM at the expense of possibly two defensive starters AND an offensive starter (Casey). Smith at least needs to restructure to avoid being a cap casualty, because...

D) I actually agree that they won't cut Daniels, even though they should give him his walking papers, move forward with a re-signed Casey and Garrett Graham, the two of whom could play next year for about what Daniels is scheduled to make, and we could throw in a rookie behind them to develop (this is a solid class of TEs)._________________

Sorry to burst bubbles, we're not giving up on CHEAP young talent along our oline because a few of you don't like them. They were rookies last season and got a lot of play time and progressed throughout the season. This pipe dream or finding a new starting RT is dumb and not happening, stop bickering about it and move on.

And there is no way we let Smith walk to keep Barwin, thats stupid. Smith provides much more and getting a rushing OLB can be done via the draft. The run stuffing ability in Smith is valuable and he does provide pressure, hes MUCH better than Barwin and we shouldn't sacrifice him to keep Barwin.

Walter and OD IMO are the only REAL options of being released or traded. I think the only one he will be gone is KW. I doubt Gary lets his best TE go, he does have a fetish with them you know. The pressure is already on the find a super star wide out (per Bob Mcnair) so Gary will not forget to address this in a big way.

A) Derek Newton isn't a rookie.

B) McNair said we need a new right tackle. I'll grant that my bickering about it amounts to less than a drop of [inappropriate/removed] on a sidewalk in Texas during July at noon, but McNair might have a thing or two to say about "staying the course" with the clearly over-matched Newton protecting his $62MM investment.

C) I disagree about Smith. He's one of my favorite Texans, but he's not going to get any younger or better and over-the-hill 5-techs are nowhere near as hard to find as guys capable of starting and succeeding at outside linebacker in a 34 scheme in the NFL. You want run-stopping? Barwin and Reed give us MUCH better run-stopping capability than Mercilus and Reed or Barwin. I like Antonio Smith, but he's not worth $6MM at the expense of possibly two defensive starters AND an offensive starter (Casey). Smith at least needs to restructure to avoid being a cap casualty, because...

D) I actually agree that they won't cut Daniels, even though they should give him his walking papers, move forward with a re-signed Casey and Garrett Graham, the two of whom could play next year for about what Daniels is scheduled to make, and we could throw in a rookie behind them to develop (this is a solid class of TEs).

A. Newton was a virtual rookie only having played 17 snaps in his rookie year, 2011, and according to PFW only gave up 7 penalties for 41 yds. and 4 sacks in 2012 while playing next to a rotating corp. of rookie RG's that offered him little to no help. By comparison Winston in his last year in Houston, 2011, gave up 7 penalties for 54 yds. and 7.5 sacks as a 6 yr. veteran starter and playing next to another veteran starter, Brisiel who helped to solidify the right side of the O-line. Now I realize those stats don't show the run blocking drop off that Newton was compared to Winston, and it was a big drop off, but I think Newton is back next year and will be much better with another year of NFL level strength and conditioning and a solidified RG in Brooks. Brooks better size and strength and ability to pancake defenders should help Newton out in run blocking.

B. No he didn't, here's a quote from McNairs statement that I think your referring to. He said we need depth in our O-line.
Q: What do you think the team needs?
A: We need another playmaker (at receiver). We want more speed at receiver. Andre (Johnson) had a great year, but we can’t expect him to carry the load for all the receivers. If we say we’re going to run the ball better, we need to make sure we’ve got depth in our offensive line. We need more depth at linebacker. We can always use another cornerback. We don’t have a glaring weakness. We’ve got a good team, and we’re going to keep building on it.

C. We need to keep Smith, he did lots of the small stuff, as well as playing the run very well, that freed up JJ to be the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Smith took on lots of double teams that our pathetic NT should have been taking if he was any better than he was. I'm thinking we extend Antonio for 2 more years at a lesser salary in order to lower the cap hit next season and in the future, along with a good upfront bonus. Crick is not ready to replace Smith, Jamison before the injury maybe but that might never happen now.

D. I remember Apollo posting something a while back about Daniels deal and that we'd have dead money to pay him if we cut him. I don't think McNair likes to pay anyone dead money, but I think Daniels is gone after next season.

A. Newton was a virtual rookie only having played 17 snaps in his rookie year, 2011, and according to PFW only gave up 7 penalties for 41 yds. and 4 sacks in 2012 while playing next to a rotating corp. of rookie RG's that offered him little to no help. By comparison Winston in his last year in Houston, 2011, gave up 7 penalties for 54 yds. and 7.5 sacks as a 6 yr. veteran starter and playing next to another veteran starter, Brisiel who helped to solidify the right side of the O-line. Now I realize those stats don't show the run blocking drop off that Newton was compared to Winston, and it was a big drop off, but I think Newton is back next year and will be much better with another year of NFL level strength and conditioning and a solidified RG in Brooks. Brooks better size and strength and ability to pancake defenders should help Newton out in run blocking.

B. No he didn't, here's a quote from McNairs statement that I think your referring to. He said we need depth in our O-line.
Q: What do you think the team needs?
A: We need another playmaker (at receiver). We want more speed at receiver. Andre (Johnson) had a great year, but we can’t expect him to carry the load for all the receivers. If we say we’re going to run the ball better, we need to make sure we’ve got depth in our offensive line. We need more depth at linebacker. We can always use another cornerback. We don’t have a glaring weakness. We’ve got a good team, and we’re going to keep building on it.

C. We need to keep Smith, he did lots of the small stuff, as well as playing the run very well, that freed up JJ to be the NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Smith took on lots of double teams that our pathetic NT should have been taking if he was any better than he was. I'm thinking we extend Antonio for 2 more years at a lesser salary in order to lower the cap hit next season and in the future, along with a good upfront bonus. Crick is not ready to replace Smith, Jamison before the injury maybe but that might never happen now.

D. I remember Apollo posting something a while back about Daniels deal and that we'd have dead money to pay him if we cut him. I don't think McNair likes to pay anyone dead money, but I think Daniels is gone after next season.

A) I know you conceded that stats don't tell the whole story, but even giving that Winston gave up more actual sacks and was a greater liability when it came to penalties, Newton was a huge liability in all aspects of his game. Based on everything I watched on offense this year, my working theory surrounding Matt Schaub's sudden drop off goes like this:

1. Schaub's foot severely limited his mobility in the pocket and outside of it. I know he was never a mobile QB, but I believe he led the league in rushing TDs for a QB once, which is something when you consider that he had zero rushes for positive yards this year and clearly looked uncomfortable moving up in the pocket. I think this also affected his throwing mechanics.

2. Gil Brandt said that McNair felt as though the team never was able to recover from its grueling two-week stretch involving three and a half games. It's tempting to call that a bunch of crap, but I believe it must have had a major effect. For Schaub's arm, Schaub's foot, and the younger players Schaub was forced to rely upon.

3. The right side of the offensive line was a disaster. In pass protection, Newton's sack numbers are suppressed due to play design and Schaub's ball protection. Even when Newton wasn't yielding sacks, he was consistently giving up pressure. I don't think putting the blame on Brooks and Jones mitigates Newton's responsibility in the slightest, either. This team has more invested in both Brooks and Jones than Newton. Tangentially, I believe that Brooks and Jones both registered more than a couple of "plus" games as run-blockers. Newton was an awful run blocker; both Foster's decline in efficiency and Schaub's inability to smoothly conduct the offense are functions of this.

B) That was the quote I was thinking of; I remembered it wrong. With that said, I think the team should oblige McNair by making Newton such "depth," as swing tackle is his ideal position on a roster.

C) I just want to make it really clear that I completely acknowledge that Smith is a major part of this team AND he is one of my favorite players in the league. I just don't believe that a 30-something 5-tech (not named JJ Watt, eventually) is nor ever will be worth two defensive starters. I understand everything everyone has said on this point, but I think you're all foolish if you don't believe for a second this staff would be against going into next season starting Shiloh Keo and rotating Braman and Mercilus at WOLB.

D) I'm not certain; I was under the impression from the spotrac numbers that we were off the hook as to dead money owed to Daniels after last season if we were to cut him. I could be wrong. I'd still be fine rolling with Casey, Graham, and a rookie and either signing a FB or just starting Clutts. It saves the team money they need to allocate elsewhere._________________

1. Owen Daniels, Antonio Smith, and Kevin Walter aren't cheap. Cutting the three of them gives us $12.75MM in cap relief, raising our working cap space to $25.25MM

This is where some of the fuzzy math comes in. People tend to just wish away millions in bonuses, confusing them with incentives based upon play. With most established players, especially ones that have restructured the bonuses are simply roster bonuses meaning that if they are on the roster in April, they have achieved the bonus for the year. Each of these three have $1 million in LTBE's. I can see Walter being cut prior to the draft, but cutting Antonio or Owen pre-draft is pretty unlikely. What do you do if JJ Watt gets hurt in camp again? OD is a perfect restructure candidate as he has practically no signing bonus, so you could easily convert this years salary into bonus and have a borderline Pro Bowl TE for $2.75 million + $ 1 million incentive. Antonio could be resigned to a cap friendly deal similar to his previous one but that coverts most of his $6 million salary to bonus prorated over 5 years and can cut his cap number by 75% this year and keep him here at least the next 3 years where he will still be highly productive.

People on this board tend to try to apply strategies other teams do with players in their late 30's on our players when they reach their 30th birthdays, which is still prime time, especially for linemen. There is NOTHING to indicate Antonio is entering into any phase of declining skills as the guy never has missed a game and has snap counts near the top. The team that just won the Super Bowl did it with players like Lewis (37), Reed (34), Suggs (30), Boldin (32), Birk (36), Leach (31), McKinney (33). Funny how everyone is in such a hurry to ditch the one guy on this roster who has actually helped carry a team to the Super Bowl because he is a whopping 31 years old. You manage your cap well so you can keep players like Antonio Smith who are WORTH IT. Texan fans need to recognize that while a build through the draft strategy is a great way to maintain a winning roster, but you need a decent mix of veteran experience and leadership and youthful talent to win Super Bowls._________________

I just don't understand the rationale Texans fans and media have for paying Glover Quin big bucks. There are at least 5 safeties better than him available in free agency if you actually want to IMPROVE the defense (Byrd, Moore, Goldson, S. Brown, Phillips) plus Delmas when healthy. The games we lost this year were a direct result of poor safety play on the deep ball and Quin's two career ints in 4 seasons from QBs not named Rusty Smith paint the picture of a dime a dozen in the box sure tackling safety. The dollars for safeties are in the playmaking, deep coverage, and covering elite TEs and last I saw Aaron Hernandez was tossing Quin aside for huge gains. Just because he's better than Eugene Wilson or CC Brown doesn't mean we need to pay him Daniel Manning money which seems like where this is going, if not higher (if it's near Weddle money I'll puke). I fail to see how it would be difficult to replace Quin with a cheaper placeholder like Chris Clemons or Patrick Chung and grab a 2nd or 3rd round safety that actually brings playmaking skill that hopefully emerges, just like Quin did as a rookie 4th rounder. The Texans defense still needs to IMPROVE and the speed in the secondary remains the most obvious area.

BTW - I don't buy the "leadership" angle with Quin at all as he was the "leader" of one of the worst secondaries in NFL history in 2010, that was only rectified by dropping him DOWN multiple pegs by bringing in Jonathan Joseph and Manning. Quin is better than some of our "just a guy" starters like Morlon Greenwood, Zac Diles, Danny Clark, but to me the danger of keeping guys like this around is that you miss out on the upside of a guy like Cushing that takes the position to the next level and the way I see it, the Texans defense needs more impact players and every year there are 2 or 3 emerge at safety (last year it was Mark Barron & Harrison Smith). In 2010, Kam Chancellor was sitting there (along with Geno Atkins) in the 4th when Kubiak reached far ahead of value for Garrett Graham (Aaron Hernandez and Dennis Pitta were taken 4 and 5 picks earlier) and settled for Sherrick McManus in the 5th. These things ALWAYS snowball as I suspect if Graham wasn't sitting around collecting dust on the roster already, we might have grabbed Dwayne Allen instead of settling for Posey who already needs to be replaced with a higher pick.

Ultimately, the Texans will be better off with Ben Jones or Brandon Brooks at RG than we would have in resigning/overpaying Mike Brisiel $20 million and I don't see this as a much different situation, except that we're probably looking at $30 million for Quin and at a much more vital playmaking position than RG._________________